Working Paper Series CREDIT & DEBT MARKETS Research Group

AN INTEGRATED PRICING MODEL FOR DEFAULTABLE LOANS AND BONDS

Edward I. Altman
Mario Onorato

S-CDM-03-05











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Mario Onorato
1

Cass Business School, City University
106, Bunhill Row
London, EC2Y 8TZ, U.K.
Phone: + 44 207 0408698
e-mail: M.F.Onorato@city.ac.uk
Edward I. Altman
2

NYU Stern School of Business
44 west Street
New York, NY 10012,
USA
Ph.: 212 998-0709
E-mail:altman@stern.nyu.edu











1
M. Onorato is Research Fellow at Cass Business School, London City University and Visiting at Erasmus
University Rotterdam
2
E. Altman is the Max L. Heine Professor of Finance, NYU Stern School of Business and Vice Director of the NYU
Salomon Center
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1






JEL classification: C15, C69, G12, H63
Keywords: statistical simulation methods, financial risk management, credit risk measurement
model, asset pricing, debt & debt management.

In recent years, credit risk has played a key role in risk management issues. Practitioners, academics
and regulators have been fully involved in the process of developing, studying and analysing credit risk
models in order to find the elements which characterize a sound risk management system. In this paper
we present an integrated model, based on a reduced pricing approach, for market and credit risk. Its
main features are those of being mark to market and that the spread term structure by rating class is
contingent on the seniority of debt within an arbitrage-free framework. We introduce issues such as, the
integration of market and credit risk, the use of stochastic recovery rates and recovery by seniority.
Moreover, we will characterise default risk by estimating migration risk through a mortality rate,
actuarial based, approach. The resultant probabilities will be the base for determining multi-period risk-
neutral transition probability that allow pricing of risky debt in the trading and banking book.








1
We thank Giovanni Barone Adesi, Winfried Hallerbach, Anthony Saunders, Jaap Spronk, Rangaraian Sundaram,
Constantine Thanassoulas , three anonymous referees, and seminar participants at Italian Banking Association for
helpful discussion of this study. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Annual Meetings of both
Financial Management Association (Paris, 2001) and European Financial Management Association (London, 2002)
and at the Euro Working Group on Financial Modelling (Capri, 2002).
2
1. Introduction
The 1988 Basle Capital Accord, which created a minimum risk-based capital adequacy
requirement for banks, marked a major step forward in introducing risk differentiation into the
regulatory framework but did not represent the optimum solution. The 1996 amendment to
the Capital Accord aimed to correct some of the issues concerning the original accord, but it did
not change the section regarding credit risk. As a consequence, regulatory capital for credit
assets was still not an appropriate basis for the capital allocation process. Financial institutions
started developing their own internal credit risk systems using economic capital. In April 1999,
regulators proposed a document, Credit Risk modelling: current practice and applications
[6]
,
which aimed at assessing the potential applications and limits of credit risk models
2
for
supervisory and regulatory purposes, in sight of the foreseeable amendment to the Capital
Accord. The Basle Committee proposed the amendment in June 1999: A new capital adequacy
framework
[8]
(which is expected to be finalised in 2003). This event marked a breakthrough as
regards the credit risk concept for capital adequacy. The committees proposal dramatically
modified the standard approach for capital requirements imposed by the 1988 Accord. A more
realistic approach was introduced based on internal rating systems. Moreover, it presented the
reclassification of securities taking into account credit risk in all its aspects: default, migration,
recovery rates, credit spreads, aggregation and concentration risk. Over the last decade risk
managers, regulators, academics and software vendors are devoted to define a sound credit (and
market) risk measurement and management system. The main objective of this study is to
define a general framework to price risky debt. The pricing of any risky security must reflect
the return on a risk-free asset plus a risk margin. The risk margin must compensate the investor
for the risk assumed which is represented by: both the transition and recovery (by seniority of
debt) risk, liquidity risk, credit exposure risk, default correlation risk, collateral risk and
concentration risk. Moreover, in an integrated framework, another source of risk has to be
considered, namely: market and credit correlation risk
3
. There are several approaches, which
may be used to jointly model interest rates and credit spreads. In this paper reduced
4
form
models and in particular the ones directly modelling credit spread components (transition and
recovery risk) are considered. Our approach is a generalization of the Das & Tufano
[22]
(DT)
(1996) model, which is an extension of the Jarrow-Lando-Turnbull (JLT) (1997)
[35]
model, and
uses credit ratings to characterize the transition risk. Unlike the JLT model, the DT model
makes the recovery rate in the event of default stochastic, and provides a two-factor
decomposition of credit spreads. In this paper we generalise this approach by considering
different set-ups for different seniority classes of debt. Therefore, its main features are those of
being mark to market (MTM)
5
and that the spread term structure by rating class (STSRC) is
adjusted for a spread term structure which is contingent on the seniority of debt (SSD) within
an arbitrage free framework. Summarising, in our integrated pricing model we take into
account the risk coming from both interest rates variations and credit event verifications
6
. The
remainder of this paper is organised as follows. Section 2 defines default and transition risk and

2
The document issued by the Basle Committee
[6]
analyses in particular four widespread credit risk models:
Creditmetrics
TM
(JP Morgan 1997)
[15]
; KMW Portfolio Manager
TM
(Kealhofer 1998)
[17] , [38], [39]
, CreditRisk+
TM

(Credit Suisse First Boston 1997)
[16]
, Credit Portfolio View
TM
(Wilson 1997 and 1998)
[53], [54]
. As the recent
literature shows Koyluoglu and Hickman (1998)
[5], [40]
, these models fit within a single generalised framework..
3
Consequently, all the correlations among the market factors (which drive the price of securities) and credit risk
factors-also called background factors- which affect the creditworthiness of obligors in the portfolio, need to be
identified and modelled. For an illustrative description of the background factors within the credit risk model
framework refer to Koyluoglu and Hickman (1998)
[40]
and Wilson(1997 and 1998)
[53], [54]
.
4
Reduced form models are so called to contrast them to structural models (Merton 1974
[44]
). The difference between
structural and reduced form model is outlined in section 2 and 4. For a complete review of the inherent literature
refer to the work of Acharya, Das and Sundaram (2002)
[1]
.
5
In contrast to the default mode paradigm, within the mark to market (or, to be more accurate, mark to model)
paradigm a credit loss can arise in response to deterioration in assets credit quality shorts of default. Foe a detailed
discussion on the topic please refer to the work of Basle Committee, pag.21
[6]
.
6
When a credit event occurs the credit quality of the issuer changes. Examples of such events are given in section 2.
3
it is aimed at illustrating both the most common methods to estimate them and the inherent
empirical evidence. Section 3 analyses the same issues for the recovery rate by seniority of debt
risk. Section 4 is the core of the paper. In this section the theoretical integrated pricing model is
illustrated. The bulk of the suggested approach relies on the modelling of both the stochastic
spread term structure by rating class and the spread contingent to the seniority of debt within a
unified arbitrage-free framework. Section 5 illustrates possible applications of the integrated
pricing model. Section 6 concludes.
2. Default and Transition Risk
Credit pricing and risk models attempt to measure credit losses. Losses are the consequence of
the firms financial position and asset quality deterioration, which then leads to the degradation
of its creditworthiness (credit migration). The determination of the creditworthiness of the
issuer is difficult as it is driven by many factors such as general economic conditions, industry
trends and specific issuer factors like the issuers financial wealth, leverage, market value,
equity value, asset value, capital structure and less tangible things such as reputation and
management skills.
The probability of a customer migrating from its current risk-rating category to any other
category, within a pre-defined time horizon, is frequently expressed in terms of a rating
transition matrix
7
. Rating migration probabilities are therefore collected in the transition
(migration) matrices and describe the probability of migrating from any given credit rating to
another one. Moreover, estimates of transition probabilities often suffer from small samples,
either in the number of rated firms or in the number of events; in particular this happens when
considering transition towards the most distant rating classes. This often results in biased
estimates of these types of transition probabilities that have led the Basle Committee on
Banking Supervision to impose a lower minimum probability of 0.0003 for rare events. In our
analysis we will cluster obligors into obligors rating classes. In this matrix the worst internal
grade corresponds to the worst state, that is the default state (last column of the matrix)
8
. Let us
assume to deal with K rating classes (the Kth being the default state), then, the transition matrix
is the collection of one-step transition probabilities of migrating from any class-i to any class-j
at the given time-m, including the probabilities of remaining in the same class (corresponding
to the off-diagonal values). The statistical, or actual, probabilities matrix can be represented as:
( ) { }
( ) ( )
( ) ( ) ( )
( ) ( ) ( )
( ) ( )
( ) ( ) ( )
(
(
(
(
(

(
(
(
(
(

= =
1 0 0 0
.. .. .. ..
..
.. ..
..
.. .. .. ..
..
.. ..
) (
2 22 21
1 11
2 1
2 22 21
1 11
m q m q m q
m q m q
m q m q m q
m q m q m q
m q m q
m q m Q
K
K
KK K K
K
K
ij
(2.1)
Once the default state is reached, no other rating classes are possible to exist at the next time
step, therefore all the transition probabilities are defined to be null, with the exception of the
probability of staying in the K-state i.e. default. As a consequence of the definition of transition
probability, another relevant property of the migration matrix is that the sum over the elements
of the same row must equal one: ( ) i m q
K
j
ij

=
; 1
1
. In the integrated model, the statistical
transition probabilities are derived from empirical data by using the mortality approach briefly
described in paragraph 2.1. The process determining customer defaults or rating migrations can
be modelled through two approaches: actuarial based methods and equity based methods.

7
See Altman, Caouette and Narayanan (1998)
[2]
for a discussion on this topic.
8 In a two state default process, within the considered time horizon, there are only two possible events: no default
and default.
4
2.1 Actuarial based method

The basic actuarial approach uses historical data on the default rates of borrowers to predict the
expected default rates for similar customers. The actuarial (also called empirical) model is
based on the estimation of statistical (or actual) transition probabilities
9
. This method uses
historical data to evaluate the migration probabilities. In this model the inputs are represented
by empirical data and the output will be the statistical estimation concerning these data. One of
the most important criticisms to the empirical approach is the apparently static nature of the
resulting average historical probabilities. In reality, actual transition and default probabilities
are very dynamic and can vary quite substantially over one year, depending on general
economic conditions and business cycles
10
.
In our integrated pricing model we will estimate the actual transition probability by using the
Altman (1998) mortality rate approach
[2]
. This method determines the (expected) default rate,
using an empirical method. An important element that needs to be observed is the aging effect
11
,
that is, the time between instruments issue up to valuation time. This approach implies lower
default probabilities in the first year than in the next years. The question is not whether a bond
or another credit derivative is going to default or not but when it is going to default and what
will be the likely recovery, given its original rating and its original seniority. Credit instruments
are classified for issue time and rating classes. After this classification it is possible to calculate
the default probability. In order to do this, it is necessary to calculate the marginal mortality rate
and the cumulative mortality rate.
The marginal mortality rate (MMR) is the probability that a credit instruments defaults over the
first year, over the second and so on. The MMR can be expressed both in term of number and
value. In the last case MMR is equal to the ratio between the total (nominal) value of the
corporate bonds included in a specific rating class defaulting over the planning horizon and the
total (nominal) value of corporate bonds included in the same rating class, at the beginning of
the time horizon.
year i the of beginning the at issued bonds of value Total
year i the in bonds defaulted of value Total
MMR
th
th
i
=
where i= 1.NN= number of years
12

Consequently the survival rate (SR
i
) is equal to SR
i
=1-MMR
i
.
One can measure the cumulative mortality rate (CMR
T
) during a specific time period,
subtracting the product of the surviving populations over the previous time, that is CMR
T
=1-
.Altman
=
T
i
i
SR
1
[2]
derives the migration probabilities for each rating class from CMR
T
, which
represents the default probability.


9
Here we refer to actual (statistical or empirical) transition probability in contrast to risk-neutral probability
10
A real dilemma concerns the private companies that are neither rated by the agencies nor publicly traded. In fact a
substantial proportion of these portfolios do not have very clear benchmark for estimating default and transition
probabilities
11
Altmans method (1998) is different from other methods determining the aging effect. In fact Moodys and S&P
use static pools (including all credit instruments), while Altman makes a distinction among instruments according to
the issue date. The (actual) transition probability matrix in the integrated pricing model can be easily inferred from
the migration matrix, which is estimated using the Altman mortality rate approach. For a more detailed illustration of
the mortality (default) rate by rating and by age approach please refer to Altman (1998)
[2]

12
If, for example, the par vale outstanding of high-yeld debt in 1997 was 335.400 ($ millions) and the par value
defaults was 4.200 ($ millions), the MMR (or alternatively the default rates) was 1.252%
5
2.2 The equity based method

The equity-based approach, often associated with the Merton model
[44]
, is mainly used for
estimating the Expected Default Frequencies (EDF)
13
of large and middle-market business
customers, and is often used to crosscheck estimates generated by actuarial-based methods.
This technique uses publicly available information on a firms liabilities, the historical and
current market value of its equity and the historical volatility of its equity to estimate the level,
rate of change and volatility (at an annual rate) of the economic value of the firms assets.
There are at least three practical limitations to implement the option (Merton model) approach:
1. It is necessary to know the market value of firms asset. This is rarely possible as the
typical firm has numerous complex outstanding debt contracts traded on an infrequent
basis.
2. It is necessary to estimate the return volatility of the firms asset. Since the market
prices cannot be observed for the firms assets, the rate of return cannot be measured
and volatilities cannot be computed.
3. It is necessary to simultaneously price all the different types of liabilities senior to the
corporate debt under consideration. Most corporations have complex liabilities
structures
14
.
Summarizing, the key ingredient of credit asset pricing and risk modelling is the default (or, in
a multi-state framework, transition) risk, which is the uncertainty underlying a firms ability to
service its debts and obligations. Prior to default, there is no way to discriminate
unambiguously between firms that will default and those that will not. At best we can only
make probabilistic assessments about the default possibility. In practice, we use transition
probabilities basically for two main reasons:

1. In the trading book, to price credit sensitive instruments adjusting it through the risk
neutral transition probability
2. In the banking book, to measure the credit risk of portfolio losses of loans
3. Recovery by seniority of debt risk
The default is one of the main types of credit events that determine loss amount occurring once
a credit has defaulted. This credit loss, also called loss given default (LGD) is defined as the
difference between the banks credit exposure and the present value of the future net recoveries
(cash payments from the borrower less workout expenses). Therefore the recovery rate (RR) is
equal to the ratio between 1-LGD and the initial exposure
15
. LGD depends on a limited set of
variables characterising the structure of a particular credit facility. These variables may include
the type of product (e.g. business loan or credit card loan), its seniority, collateral and country

13
Expected default probabilities can be inferred from the option models under the assumption that default occurs
when the value of a firms assets falls below its liabilities. See Crosbie (1998)
[17]
for a detailed description of how
the EDF are estimated within the KMV model.
14
For an interesting and detailed analysis of the limitations of the equity approach see Jarrow and Turnbull (2000)
[36]
15
The estimation of LGD depends on the availability of historical loss data that may be retrieved by the following
possible sources: banks own historical LGDs records, samples by risk segment; trade association and publicly
available regulatory reports; consultants proprietary data on client LGDs, and published rating agency data on the
historical LGDs of corporate bonds.
6
of origination. In the Credit Risk+
TM [16]
model
16
the LGD is treated as a deterministic variable
while in the other structural models is treated as a random variable
17
. Reduced form model
assume either a constant (Litterman and Iben
[41]
, JLT
[35]
, for example) or a stochastic recovery
rate (Duffie and Singleton
[28]
and DT
[22]
for example). These models assume zero correlation
among the LGDs of different borrowers, and hence no systematic risk due to LGD volatility
18
.
Moreover, the empirical evidence shows that the recovery rates are both state
19
and structure
20

dependent. In particular, our analysis based on the last three decades default and recovery data
on US corporate bonds shows that the recovery rate changes depend on the seniority of debt. In
fact, comparing senior secured and unsecured bonds one can see that the recovery distribution
for the latter is more spread out and has a longer lower tail (see table 1)
21
.

Recovery Rates by Seniority and Original Bond Rating, 1971-2001

Recovery Rate
Number of Average Weighted Median Standard
Seniority Observations Price Price Price Deviation

Senior Secured
Investment Grade 35 $62.00 $66.00 $56.88 $19.70
Non-Investment Grade 113 38.65 32.89 30.00 29.46

Senior Unsecured
Investment Grade 159 $53.14 $55.88 $50.00 $26.14
Non-Investment Grade 275 33.16 30.17 31.00 25.28

Senior Subordinate
Investment Grade 10 $39.54 $42.04 $27.31 $24.23
Non-Investment Grade 283 33.31 29.62 28.00 24.84

Subordinated
Investment Grade 10 $35.64 $23.55 $35.69 $32.05
Non-Investment Grade 206 31.73 28.87 28.00 22.06















Table 1. Recovery rates by seniority and original rating

16
For portfolios characterised by distributions of exposure sizes that are highly skewed, the assumption that LGDs
are known with certainty may tend to bias downwards the estimated tail of the PDF of credit losses
17
In these models the LGD probability distribution is assumed to take the form of a beta distribution because this
result in a type of distribution whose shape is tipically skewed to the right as shown in the empirical works of
Altman and Kishore (1996)
[2]
, Carty and Lieberman (1996)
[10], [11]
,

Duffie and Singleton (1996)
[28]
, Castle, Keisman
and Yang (2000)
[13]

18
Furthermore, they assume independence among LGDs associated with the same borrower. The assumption that
LGDs between borrowers are mutually independent may represent a serious shortcoming when the bank has
significant industry concentrations of credits. Furthermore, the independence assumption is clearly false with respect
to LGDs associated with similar (or equally ranked) facilities to the same borrower. The assumption of default
intensities independence may contribute to an understatement of losses to the extent that LGDs associated with
borrowers in a particular industry may increase when the industry as a whole is under stress.
19
Some evidence consistent with the state-dependence of recovery rates is presented in the analysis, based on
recovery rates, compiled by Moodys for the period 1974 through 1996 (Carty and Lieberman, 1996
[10], [11]
).
However, even for senior secured bonds, there was substantial variation in the actual recovery rates. Although these
data are also consistent with cross-sectional variation in recovery that is not associated with stochastic variation in
time of expected recovery, Moodys recovery data also exhibit a pronounced cyclical component. There is equally
strong evidence that of corporate bonds vary with the business cycle (as is seen, for example, in Moodys data)
Speculative-grade default rates tend to be higher during recessions, when interest rates and recovery rates are
typically below their long-run means.
20
See Castle, Keisman and Yang (2000)
[13]

21
Source: Altman and Pompeii (2002)
[13]
.Also Duffie and Singleton (1998)
[28]
found similar results.
7
The analysis also ranks the results in investment grade and non-investment grade. In fact, when
evaluating an instrument at the first steps of its life the type of guarantee rate on the underlying
security is an extremely relevant characteristic, which according to historical data - implies
that the credit is subject to a global lower risk. This is shown in Table 1, where the rating class,
at the time of issuance, non-investment grade in particular, is not influencing the average values
as much as the seniority class does (see the senior secured and senior unsecured investment
grade case). The most relevant issue is that the dominant factor influencing the evaluation of
the security is the composition of both the recovery rate and default probability. Actually, low
default rates do not assure that in case of default the recovery rate is low as well; on the other
hand high recovery rate is not a credit low-risk index alone, since the security might by highly
defaultable, implying the elevated investment risk. In the integrated model we will estimate
spread term structure by rating class, to explicitly consider the credit rating (risk) transition and
will correct them by means of spread term structure of recovery rate by seniority of debt, both
in a arbitrage free framework, in order to get a risk-neutral price of the financial instruments.
4. The theoretical integrated pricing model
There are two main approaches to pricing credit risky instruments: the structural
22
and the
reduced form approach. It is argued that structural approaches are of limited value when
applied to price interest rate and credit sensitive instruments and, consequently, in measuring
and managing market and credit risk in an integrated fashion. Rosen (2002)
[47]
shows that since
the main focus of the structural model is the measure of the counterparty exposure risk, they
assume deterministic market risk factors, such as interest rate risk. In contrast to structural
models, which assume a specific microeconomic process generating customers default and
rating migrations, reduced-form models attempt to directly describe the arbitrage free evolution
of risky debt values without reference to an underlying firm-value process. Acharya, Das and
Sundaram (2002)
[1]23
show how this class of model has resulted in successful conjoint
implementations of term-structure models with default models. The objective pursued within
the suggested integrated pricing model is that of deriving a general framework for pricing risky
debt, both plain vanilla (as for example corporate bond) and (credit) derivative. Present values
of all cash flows are calculated by using both stochastic interest rate term structure (market
risk) and stochastic credit spread term structure (credit risk). This last term can be decomposed
in the following risk sources: 1) stochastic recovery rates by seniority, 2) correlation between
interest rate term structure and stochastic recovery rates (correlation of market and credit risk)
and 3) multi state transition probability at the m-
th
time step for the M-period process. In this set
up the proposed integrated pricing model may be considered a multi-period mark to model
framework. As for all reduced-form models, also in our integrated model we start modelling the
risk free term structure by considering an underlying process for the evolution of risk-less rates.
The objective is to build a lattice of risky rates on top of the risk-less rate process in an
arbitrage-free manner by directly modelling credit spread components (transition and recovery
risk). We generalise the Das & Tufano
[22]
(DT) model, where the spread term structure by rating
class is modelled through three main components: risk neutral probability matrix, stochastic

22
In fact, the structural approach assumes some explicit microeconomic model for the process that determines
defaults or rating migrations of any single customers. A customer might be assumed to default if the underlying
value of its assets falls below some specified threshold, such as the level of the customers liabilities. The change in
the value of a customers assets in relation to various thresholds is often assumed to determine the change in its risk
rating over the planning horizon. Structural approach models are Merton type models.
23
Reduced-form models may differ depending on the procedure that is used, the input information required, the use
of ratings-matrix and the recovery assumptions. As pointed out by Das and Sundaram (2000)
[21]
There are three
commonly used assumptions concerning recovery rates in the event of default: recovery of par, where the recovery
amount is specified as a fraction of par value due at maturity; recovery of treasury, where recovery amount is
specified as a fraction of value of a default-free bond with the same maturity; recovery of market value, where the
recovery amount is specified as a fraction of the immediately-preceding market value.
8
recovery rate and its correlation with interest rates. In the DT model the first component is
aimed at estimating the transition risk; the second one, the recovery risk; the last one, the
correlation between market and credit risk. In the integrated model different set-ups for
different seniority classes are introduced within an arbitrage free framework. As the empirical
evidence shows (see section 2 and 3) the mean recovery is mainly contingent on the seniority of
debt rather than on the rating class alone (investment grade vs. non-investment grade in our
analysis) as it is almost invariably assumed in all reduced model. The major contribution of this
work it is to correct each STSRC through a spread contingent on the seniority of debt (SSD)
within a unique arbitrage free framework. As a result, this model allows more variability in the
spreads of risky debt. Moreover, by choosing different recovery rate processes for instruments
within the same credit rating class, it allows variability of spreads to be instrument specific
rather than rating class specific.
4.1 The stochastic interest rate term structure model

In the integrated model an interest term structure is assigned to each rating class i (where 0 i
K, if we consider K rating classes). The i-th interest rate f
i
at which cash flows are to be
discounted is composed of forward risk-free interest rate plus a (forward) spread s associated to
the same rating class as shown below:
f
i
(t) = forward curve for rating class-i = forward risk free(t) + spread-i

(4.1.1)
In this context, the risk-free forward interest rate (stochastic) process can be modelled by using
any interest rate term structure model like, for example, the Heath-Jarrow-Morton [1992]
[32]
or
the Black-Derman-Toy [1990]
[9]
model. It is not the purpose of this paper to detail the risk
neutral set up model formulation for the evolution of the interest rate free term structure, for
which specialised literature may be addressed. More relevant to the present paper purposes is to
illustrate how the spread is modelled for which the following paragraphs are devoted to.
4.2 The stochastic spread term structure model

Recovery rates, risk of default and the seniority type are relevant parameters for assessing
credit risk. Therefore, in the integrated model, the spread is decomposed in its two main
determinants a) recovery rates and b) default
24
(transition) risk. Thus, in order to price the credit
spread component of the interest rate term structure, both recovery rate and default variables
need to be modelled. Let be the (risk neutral) default rate
ik
q
25
(i.e., the rate at which default
occurs). This rate may be either constant, or function of time-to-maturity of the security or of
any other factor in the economy. The recovery rate will be denoted by and representing the
fraction of the face value of the security that is recovered in case of default (by definition
01). Considering the influence of recovery and default rates on credit instruments, it is
possible to consider a first simple relationship between these parameters and interest rate
spreads. Let r be the one period risk-less rate of interest, then the risk-neutral value B of a credit
risky bond maturing in a single period from now must be equal to the discounted value of
expected cash flows in the future:
( )
r
q q
B
ik ik
+
+
=
1
1
(4.2.1)
where the parameters and have been set to their risk-neutral values. On the other hand the
price of the risky bond B off the spread curve is given by:
ik
q

24
The default risk bearing also information on the type of seniority type
25
The default rate being the rate at which default occurs
9
s r
B
+ +
=
1
1
(4.2.2)
By equating the right hand sides of Eq. (4.2.1) and Eq. (4.2.2) the required relationship between
the spread s, which is the observed market spread for the generic security I, and the
determinants of the spread may be derived. Solving by s we obtain:
( )(
( )
)

+
=
1 1
1 1
ik
ik
q
r q
s (4.2.3)
In general, the actuarial estimation of the default rate is different from its risk neutral value,
because the way through which the actuarial value is estimated is independent from the market
price of that security. If, recalling eq. 2.1, the actuarial default rate is,
ik
q we have:
( )( )
( )

+
=
1 1
1 1
ik
ik
act
q
r q
s (4.2.4)
where s
act
differs from s. To calibrate the statistical value of the default rate one can use spread
market data. Given s, it is possible to render risk neutral by summing to
ik
q
ik
q

the adjustment
factor .
( )( )
( )

+
+ +
=
1 ) ( 1
1 1 ) (
ik
ik
q
r q
s
(4.2.5)
Consequently =
ik
q
ik
q +. This approach allows coupling the model of the stochastic process for
the interest rate term-structure to the market data, that is to say theoretical and empirical data.
From Eq. (4.2.3) it is possible to see that:
- the spread increases proportionally to the default rate increase; this has a financial
implication: as the default rate increases the possibility of getting values far apart
form the expected average value is higher. On the contrary, in the limiting case of default
risk approaching zero ( 0; for =0 the recovery rate looses its meaning) the spread
tends to zero (s 0), allowing the certain value equal to the average
ik
q
ik
q
ik
q

ik
q
- the spread decreases proportionally to the recovery rate increase, which means that - in
case of default - the higher is the chance of getting back the invested amount, the more
limited fluctuations from the average price are got; in other words high recovery rates
assure low credit risk. In the limiting case, approaching total recovery ( 1) the spread
still tends to zero (s 0), in the ideal limiting case s=0 representing the evolution of a
risk-less process
- when the default rate tends to one ( 1) and the recovery rate tends to zero ( 0)
the spread tends asymptotically to become infinite.
ik
q
Of course limiting cases are never reached but their study helps visualising the trend of the
functional dependence of the spread from the default risk and recovery rate. In fact, as pointed
out by Das
[20]
, Eq. (4.2.3) expresses the spread as a function of the composite variable (1-),
for this reason the above formulation does not allow expressing the spread as a function of
default risk and recovery rate independently. Therefore a more elaborated interest rate spread
modelling is needed. Considering, for example, the HJM model, it is possible to observe that its
structure allows for the required effective two-factor decomposition of credit spreads. Under
ik
q
10
the risk-neutral measure, the expected risky cash flows discounted at risk-less rates must be
equal to the value of expected risk-less cash flows discounted at risky discount rates:
( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
(
(
(

+ =
(
(
(

|
|
|
.
|

\
|
(
(
(

=
T
t
m
T
t
j
i i d
m
t
j
i
j s j t f m C j t f E
1
1
1
1 * , exp ) ( * , exp (4.2.6)
where is the expected cash flow of the risky bond in case of default at the time step-m
before maturity and 1 is the cash flow in case of non-default. In order to render in
explicit form it is necessary to define the cumulative and one-period default probabilities
associated to the rating class of the instrument at any given time, and to consider the recovery
rate at the corresponding default time. Including the default risk, the recovery rate and the
credit seniority information in , by means of Eq. (4.2.3) it is possible to estimate the
determinants of the interest rate term structure spread associated to the rating class I contingent
to the seniority of debt. In order to develop a consistent framework - since for the interest rate
term structure model a risk-neutral world is assumed, the actual transition probabilities
(estimated by using the mortality approach
) (m C
d
) (m C
d
) (m C
d
26
described in section 2) have to be risk-neutral
adjusted. After having obtained the risk-neutral set up for the evolution of the term structure of
interest rates, the integrated model derives the risk-neutral probabilities of the transition process
to default. Summarising, we will first correlate the interest rate term with one recovery rate
structure, then, we will generalise the results by considering s seniority type thus including the
spread correction due to the recovery dependence on the seniority. Following this set up a new
stochastic framework for the arbitrage-free pricing of risky debt is depicted. This framework is
illustrated through the following three steps:
1. first construct a one period risk neutral probability matrix for each seniority type
2. then extend to a multi-period framework through the definition of a cumulative risk-neutral
transition matrix which allows the obligor to default at any point in time
3. third estimate the STSRC contingent to the seniority of debt
4.2.1 Risk-neutral probability transition matrix

One of the key points in which the integrated model departs from other models is in the spread
dependence assumption of both the recovery rate on seniority s and of the rating class. In
general, in the integrated model, the recovery rate is assumed to follow any reasonable
distribution. We suggest calibrating the model by using a beta distribution in according to the
empirical evidence described in the second section. In practice, any value for the recovery rate
is possible with a non zero probability. The probability density function of the beta distribution
is given by:
1,...,5 s with
1 and 0 for 0
1 0 for ) 1 (
) ( ) (
) (
) , , (
1
1
=

> <
< <

+
=

sm sm
sm
sm
sm
sm
sm
sm sm
sm sm
sm sm sm sm
g

(4.2.1.1)
where represents the fraction of recovery at time m associated to the seniority type s,
represents the probability associated to that recovery rate (belonging to the s seniority
class); the seniority type range is between 1 and 5 because the considered seniority classes are
sm

( ) .
sm
g

26
The statistical migration matrix is an input in this pricing model. One can also use other approach, like the S&P or
Moodys method of estimating the migration matrix
11
5: senior secured, senior unsecured, senior subordinated, subordinated, junior subordinated.
Moreover stands for the gamma distribution and and are two generic parameters
which depend from both the seniority and the time. Equation 4.2.2.1 has the required property
that 0 and 1 bound the recovery
sm sm

27
. If
sm
= 31,73% and =22,06%, as for the subordinated
non-investment grade bond (see table 1), the pdf of the beta distribution is depicted in figure 1.
sm
on i
5
7
ry %
nves
6
4
ment
7
1
7
8
(
(
(
(

+
1
1
1
1
pdf (BETA) subordinated n t grade
0
0,005
0,01
0,015
0,02
18
1
5
2
2
2
9
3
6
4
3
5
0
8
5
9
2
9
9
recove
p
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y

(
b
e
t
a
)

Figure 1 Beta Distribution
The figure illustrates the high degree of randomness present in recovery rates.
The model objective is to develop a risk neutral lattice for pricing risky debt. In order to render
the forward interest and recovery rate process tractable numerically, the corresponding state
space
28
could be discretised consistently through both the (discretised) time structure, m, and
through the shock vectors v
29
, for the risk free term structure process, and z, for the recovery
rate process. To implement the model, we make the standard discrete time assumption that v
and z are binomial random variables. In particular, we assume that both v and z takes on the
value with probability 0,5: 1
(4.2.1.2)
=
(
(
(
(

+
+
= ;
1
1
1
1
z v
Consequently, discretising, the recovery rate vector, function of each seniority type s at the
given time m, becomes:

27
The parameters can be computed since the mean
sm
and variance
2
sm
of a beta distribution are given by:
sm sm
sm
sm

+
= and
( ) ( ) 1
2
2
+ + +
=
sm sm sm sm
sm sm
sm

where
sm
and
sm
are the mean and standard deviation of
the actual empirical distribution of credit recovery belonging to seniority debt type-s.
28
The state-space is defined as the ensemble of all possible states related to the stochastic process.
29
If, for example, the HJM model is used to build the risk neutral set up for the estimation of the risk free term
structure, v represent the random variable of the underlying stochastic process,
i.e.: m v T t m T t a T t f T m t f ) , ( ) , ( ) , ( ) , ( + + = + , where and represent respectively both the drift and the
volatility of the process. In a discrete time set up, periods are taken to be of length m>0, thus a typical time point, t,
has the form lm for integer l.
12
(4.2.1.3)
1,...,5 s ; ) ( =
(
(
(
(
(

+
=
sm
sm
sm
sm
sm
z

From now on, to reduce the notational burden, we suppress the dependence from z and in the
remainder we will consider = . We will remark the time dependence because we
will allow in our model to choose different beta distribution parameterisation in different time,
like for example, in different economic cycle. In a discrete time set up, in order to consider a
consistent and integrated risk-neutral framework, it is necessary to correlate the state space
recovery rates structure with the forward rates term structure at any given time. Let us define
as the (empirical) correlation between the term interest rate structure and the recovery rate
) (z
sm
( )
) (m
s

( )
30
, the
assumed joint distribution is:
( )
( )
( )

+
+
+ +
=
, 1 , 1
, 1 , 1
, 1 , 1
, 1 , 1
|
.
|

\
| +
|
.
|

\
|
|
.
|

\
|
|
.
|

\
| +
4
1
prob. h wit
4
1
prob. h wit
4
1
prob. with
4
1
prob. with

z v, f
(4.2.1.4)
Moreover, let us define as the risk neutral probability vector
31
collecting the states
probabilities of each branch of the lattice:
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(

+
=
4
1
4
1
4
1
4
1
'

.
For computational needs and for notation ease, it is useful to introduce another concept before
getting the final explicit functional form for the forward spreads: the state-prices
32
. The state
price (denoted by the variable w(m)) at time m+1 evaluated at time-m, is defined as the price at
time-m times the risk-neutral probability of being in that state at the time-m discounted at the
risk-free interest rate, i.e.:
( ) ( ) | |
m m
f
m w m w
, 1
1
1
1

+
= (4.2.1.5)
where the state prices are considered as four-dimensional vectors (corresponding to the four
possible states defined by the double stochastic structure) for each seniority and is the
forward rate between time t=(m-1) and time t=m. Both the interest rate term structure and
m m
f
, 1

30
The definition of the parameter allows having one more degree of freedom, which enables to perform the
proper recovery rates and interest rates correlation choice according to the overall economy time-scale considered in
the model.
31
The vector is risk neutral by construction having assumed that v and z takes on the value with probability 0,5. 1
32
As pointed out by Das and Sundaram (2000)
[29]
State prices are the current value of a security that pays off a
dollar in a single specific state in the future and zero in all other states. For example, if there are only two possible
states (up and down) at the same time in the future, then the state price of the up state would be the value of a
dollar received in that state times the risk neutral probability of that state, discounted to the present, using a risk-less
discount rate. State prices are useful since they allow to compute the price of any security by multiplying the payoffs
of the security by state prices in each node (state), and then add these values up. Of course at time 0 the state price is
simply unity. i.e. w(0)=1
13
the recovery rate structure are implied in the definition of the state price, track of them can be
found in the discount and probability factors, respectively. The cash-flow at time step-m is a
function of recovery rates as well as transition rates. While recovery rates are correlated to the
risk-neutral interest rate structure, the transition probabilities have to be rendered risk-neutral in
order to preserve the overall framework consistency. For this purpose, as generally described in
paragraph 4.2, it is necessary to introduce rating class i and seniority s specific adjusting factors
to the empirical transition probabilities defined for any time step-m . Let us consider the
one-period transition from a generic time-m to time (m+1); this is performed by defining the
unknown quantities referred to the i-th rating class and to the s-th seniority type
( ) m
s
i
( ) m
s
i
( ) { }
33
of the
credit instrument at time step-m.
( )
( ) ( )

1
..
2
1
m
m
s
s

( )
(
(
(
(
(

(
(
(
(
(

=
.. 0 0
.. .. ..
.. 1 1
.. 1

1 .. 0 0
.. .. .. ..
..
.. ..
) (
2 22
2 2
1
1
12 11
2 22 21
1 11
m q m q m
m q m m q m q m
m q m q m q
m q m q
q m Q
K
s s
K
s
s
K
s s
s
K
s
s


=
1
21
1
m q
m
s
s
ij

s
i
( ) ( )
( ) ( ) ( )
( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
(4.2.1.6)
( ) ( ) ( )
where is the risk neutral representation of ) (m Q
s
) (m Q , when incorporating the seniority type
effect in the transition matrix by rating class, as shown in the generic element ,which, by
construction, explicitly consider the adjustment factor . Invoking the definition of state
price, for the credit instrument of seniority type-s being in class-i at time-m, the following
condition, in a risk neutral world, must be satisfied:
) (m q
s
ij
( ) m
s
i
( ) ( ) | |
s f
m C E m w
act
mM
s
+ +
=
1
1
( )
(4.2.1.7); where is the actual forward interest in the period
between time-m and maturity (time-M), s is the market spread and the expected cash flow at
time-m for the bond of rating class-i and seniority type-s is determined by:
act
mM
f
| | ( ) ( ) ( ) | | | |
s
s
iK
m q , 1 , 1
s
i
s
i
s
i
m q m q m C E ,..., ,
2 1
= ..., (4.2.1.8)
Eq. (4.2.1.7) and Eq. (4.2.1.8) provide the solutions for the unknown associated to the
rating class-i and seniority type-s by calibrating those equations with the (average) market
spread of the considered risky debt. In fact, making use of simple algebra, it is possible to show
that Eq. (4.2.1.7) is the generalisation of Eq. (4.2.5) when considering the assumptions of the
suggested integrated pricing model. Applying the above-mentioned market price calibration it
is possible to find all the adjustment factors to get the risk neutral transition matrix for seniority
type-s at time t. Five transition matrices for each rating class correspondent to the five seniority
types are generated. Therefore the model can be split into five parallel models yielding specific
information on the seniority for any rating class, at any time step. This information is then
embedded in the final expression of the spread related to the seniority type. At this stage it is
important to observe that, according to the data in table 1, default rates are not affected by the
credit instrument dependence on seniority, while the recovery rate does. Within this unified risk
( ) m

33
One reason behind the choice of K rating class and s seniority type is that there are well documented tables of
default frequencies for standard ratings but there is not enough data in all cases to distinguish between different
seniority types. Another reason is that while ratings are subject to random changes the seniority class remains
unchanged during the life of an asset
14
neutral framework it is possible to measure the contribution of the seniority of a credit issue to
the risk neutral spread curve.
4.2.2 Multiple time horizon

Up to now the attention was focussed on those variables, assumptions and parameters that have
a direct impact on credit risk, without explicitly considering the time at which those quantities
have been evaluated or defined. Another basic managerial aspect of credit risk is the time
horizon of the risk measure. This measure of risk of a financial instrument is a critical issue. In
fact, in this case the problem of extrapolation, or interpolation, has to be faced in order to
achieve the correct estimation of migration probabilities in the multiple time-horizon. Let us
consider the one-period probabilities as the probability of migrating from rating class-i
to rating class-j in the time interval between time step-(m-1) and step-m with respect to a
generic recovery rate structure s. Actually, the probabilities previously considered in the
transition matrices elements at the generic time step-m are regarded as cumulative probabilities;
the actual cumulative probabilities are obtained by the one step probabilities by a recursive
procedure. Under the assumption that the one period migration probabilities at subsequent time
steps are independent, it is possible to obtain the actual rating class transition probabilities,
from any class-i to any class-j, at the subsequent time step by multiplying the actual migration
matrix at time-m with the one at time m+1. This procedure may be applied recursively yielding
for the actual transition matrix at time T. Applying the risk-neutral adjustment procedure at any
time step as outlined in previous paragraph, the risk-neutral transition matrix at time period
m+1 is directly derived. It is important to point out that this structure allows embedding in any
transition probability at the given time-m all the information on transition probabilities at
previous time steps (maintaining probabilities independence), therefore the single one-period
transition probability keeps the information on for all states k,l and for all times
steps-n (n<m). In particular, the default probabilities contain the information on the
previous time step transition probabilities. This feature distinguishes the integrated model form
the other reduced models outlined in section 1,2 and 4. The transition probability can change
significantly over time. An investment grade has a higher chance of downgrade than of upgrade
and vice versa (mean reversion in credit ratings). This means that in the high rated firms
transition risk (and default probability in particular) increase over time and, by contrast, high
yield risky debt that do not default, are more likely to improve than deteriorate in credit quality,
thus showing a decreasing default probability over time.
( ) m q
s
ij
0
( ) m q
s
ij
( ) n q
s
kl
(m q
s
ik
)
4.2.3 One-period and cumulative transition probabilities

Before deriving the formula for the spread curve it is interesting to focus on transition
probabilities. Provided that K rating classes are considered, is defined as the one-
period default probability over the period from [(m-1), m] associated to the state I and
generic seniority s, i.e. the probability of migration from the rating class i to class K
(corresponding to the default state). The cumulative probability of default at the time period-m
(t=m) is defined as , and it is a function of the previous-time cumulative probability
( m q
s
ik
0
)
) ( m q
s
ik
34

and the one-period default probability
35
as follows:
( ) | | ( + = m q m q m q m q
s
iK
s
iK
s
iK
s
iK
0
) ) 1 (( 1 ) ) 1 (( )

(4.2.3.1)

34
The previous time cumulative probability is the probability of having got default until the previous time step.
35
The one-period default probability is the probability of getting to default between (m-1) and m
15
Conversely, the one period probability of default in the period indexed by m may be expressed
as: ( )
) ) 1 (( 1
) ) 1 (( ) (
0


=
m q
m q m q
m q
s
iK
s
iK
s
iK s
iK
(4.2.3.2).
These definitions are useful to compute expected cash flows over time for a zero coupon risky
bond. Since q , and the cumulative probability of default must be increasing:
(4.2.3.3)
0 ) ( > m
s
iK
), 1 (( m
s
iK
0 ) ) ( > q m q
s
iK
then, default probabilities lie in the range [0,1] as required. In this formalisation it is important
to point out that by means of the procedure outlined above, the risk-neutral adjusted transition
probabilities to default transmit the information of all the actual transition probabilities. At this
stage all the information required for deriving the spread structure as a function of its
determinants has been derived and may be embedded into the cash flow evaluation. With
reference to Eq. (4.2.6) and Eq. (4.2.1.8), the expected cash flow at the m-th time period for the
given seniority class-s in its explicit form is:
| | ( ) ( ) | | ( ) ( ) n m m q m q m C E
s
s
ik
s
ik
s
d
, 1 1 1 ) (
0
= (4.2.3.4)
which also generalise Eq. (4.2.1). As pointed out in the multiple time horizon approach, in the
integrated model the one-period probabilities are given by the first transition probability, and
the cumulative probabilities are derived recursively. The philosophy of the integrated model
appears evident also at this stage since the strict correlation between the underlying model
structure and the empirical data is assured at each step of the formulation: theory and actual
data are interwoven in order to assure adherence between the theoretical process and the market
dynamics. Recalling Eq. (4.2.3.4) it is possible to rewrite Eq. (4.2.6) in the following way:
( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) i j sp j t f m C j t f E
T
t
j
s
i
T
t
m
s
m
t
j
i

(
(
(

+ =
(
(
(

|
|
|
.
|

\
|
(
(
(

=
; , exp ) ( , exp
1 1
1
1
(4.2.3.5)
Making use of both the definition of state prices and cash-flow in case of default (see Eq.
4.2.1.7) at any time-step-m Eq. (4.2.3.5) becomes:
| | ( ) ( ) ( ) i j sp j t f n m m q m q n m w
T
t
j
s
i
T
t
m
m
n
s
s
ik
s
ik

(
(
(

+ =
(

=
=
; , exp ) , ( ) ( ) ) 1 ( 1 ) , (
1 1
1
1
0

(4.2.3.6)
4.3 Spread term structure by rating class contingent to the seniority of debt

The term structure of forward credit spreads estimation is the problem to be solved in last step
of the rocess. For any rating class and seniority type the following spread, sp, set is given p
{ } T t K i t sp
s
i
< = = 1,...,5; s ; ,..., 1 ) ( (4.3.1)
In order to give the spread curve in its explicit form it is necessary to consider its integral
formulation. The spread curve evaluated at time t for a given rating class-i is defined by all
spreads computed at consequent time steps within the bond life-span, specifically in the time
interval [t,T]. Let us consider Eq. (4.2.3.6) and define the integral spread curve S(,M) between
the -th and the M-th period (corresponding to any given time [t,T] and maturity t=T,
respectively)

16
( ) ( )
| | ( ) , ) , ( ) ( ) ) 1 ( 1 ) , (
1
, ,
1
/
1 / 1
s0
iK
1

)
`

|
.
|

\
|

+ = =

=
T
j
T
m
m
n
s
s
iK
T
t
j
s
i
s
i
s
i
j f n m m q m q n m w Ln
j sp M SP
T
SP

(4.3.2)
In order to derive the spread curve at time step- the following differential relation is used
( ) ( ) ( ) M SP M SP sp sp
s
i
s
i
s
i
s
i
, 1 , |
.
|

\
|

(4.3.3)
Finally, referring to Eq. (4.3.2) the forward interest rate spread is determined as:
( )
| |
| |
( ) ( )
1,...,5; s K; 1,..., i
, ,
) , ( ) ( ) ) 1 ( 1 ) , (
) , ( ) ( ) ) 1 ( 1 ) , (
1
1 1
1
/
/ 1
0
/
1 / 1
0
T t
j f j f
n m m q m q n m w
n m m q m q n m w
Ln sp
T
j
T
j
T
m
m
n
s
s
iK
s
iK
T
m
m
n
s
s
iK
s
iK
s
i
= =
(
(
(

= =

+ = =

(4.3.4)
The last-period forward spread between time T and time T+ relative to the i-th rating class and
adjusted for the seniority s is denoted by sp , by computing node-T on the tree of
the interest forward rate structure, the spread is derived considering the last period expected
cash-flow in case of default without considering previous cash-flow events. Referring to Eq.
(4.3.4) it is straightforward to derive the last-period spread as follows
( ) ( ) M sp T
s
i
s
i
=
| | i T
s

(

(
+ , )) (
T q
T q T q
E T sp
s
iK
s
iK
s
iK s
i

+
= 1 (
) ( 1
) ( ) (
1 ) ( exp
(4.3.5)
5. Applications
Our model requires easily available information as input, namely: the risk-free yield curve, the
term structure of credit spreads for each rating class, the statistical transition matrix and both
mean and standard deviation of the recovery rate by seniority of debt. The most important and
useful resultant model information is: risk neutral transition matrix and risk neutral spread term
structure are both contingent on the seniority of debt. Moreover, the bivariate lattice, thorough
which the STSRC and SSD has been estimated, was built by correlating riskless interest rates
and recovery rates thus considering the integration between market and credit risk. Using this
information, the following products, among others, are priced by generating the necessary cash
flows at each node on the lattice and discounting the cash flows back by multiplication of the
state prices to obtain present values on plain-vanilla risky debt of any rating class and any
seniority of debt. Our model performs quite well to price rating-sensitive debt since the rating
transition matrix provides risk-neutral information on rating changes (adjusted to the seniority)
which can be directly used to generate cash flows at each node on the tree. For spread-adjusted
notes, the coupon may also be indexed to the spread at each node, this is achieved by
computing the forward spread at each node on the lattice and, since the price of the risky debt
is known at each node, and so is the riskless rate, it is quite simple to compute the credit spread
at each node as well. It is also possible to price spread option since cash flows may be
generated at each node by comparing the spread at the node with the strike rate. For total return
swaps, since the price of any underlying risky bond is computable at each node on the tree, the
total return on the bond may also be easily calculated. Although the model is rich and flexible
enough to price many credit assets, both plain vanilla and derivative, we think is particularly
appropriate to price defaultable loans and corporate bonds.
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6. Conclusions
The stochastic spread structure model considered within the integrated model allows taking into
account effects due to rating transitions (including default events) and recovery rates depending
on seniority. The overall procedure allows discriminating the effects of the credit instrument
belonging to a specified rating class at any given time; actually fixing the time step in the
forward interest rate term structure, k-1 spreads corresponding to the defined rating classes are
derived. More specifically, this model is aimed at computing the spread for credit instruments
belonging to a defined rating class and having a specified seniority, so that to discriminate the
information relative on the given seniority. This framework allows depicting the effects on
spread curves due to the rating class, and -for any given rating class, the effects due to the
different seniority types using the risk neutral arbitrage set-up.
Further research on this area will be devoted both on considering the influence of the economic
cycle and the supply/demand for defaulted assets on the estimation of recovery contingent to
seniority and analyse the structural (firm related) interdependencies between recovery rates and
default probability. Moreover the issue of default correlation and its impact on pricing risky
debt should also be investigated. Finally, from a practical point of view, there are at least two
other relevant issues that need to be carefully taken in consideration in future work, namely
liquidity risk and parameter calibration. Our intuition is that we need an integrated pricing and
risk model to exploit in a coherent framework the risk and capital management banking
problem.

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